


you saw me standing alone

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, happy halloween :D
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 03:08:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8311696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: Louis dreams deep of running, running so hard and so fast he could become something else. He’s in the bog again, but he feels like the master of it. It feels like his home. He follows a scent, sweet and familiar, pulling him like a siren song across the bog.  His toes dig into the mud, finding a natural traction. There’s no chill in the air against his skin betraying the autumn weather, he feels nothing but the pull, stronger than blood, than breathing, than hunger, and Louis serves it dutifully. He crests a hill and comes to a stop, ready to devour. Niall stands before him with a shotgun and a silver bayonet in his hands. Louis pauses. [Or, a Donny werewolf in Ireland.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> so this is nearly an american werewolf in london au until it very suddenly isn't. there's typical werewolf violence, but it's minimal, concentrated to a short section, and nothing graphic enough to be called graphic, i'd say. please let me know if you think otherwise.
> 
> this is dedicated to amy, my very best enabler. and thanks to the rest of my stone cold pack of weird werewolf kids who listened to me whine about writing this. and thanks to my roommates, who let me show them AWIL and tell them all the cool and fun trivia i know about it, like an absolute nerd.
> 
> title from BLUE MOON, OBVIOUSLY

Louis turns one way, then he turns the other, then he turns the other other, keeps turning until he’s done a full circle, and still -- “I’m lost.”

He'd started talking out loud to himself about an hour ago. It's a lot less lonely this way, and Louis’ always thought he was his own best company. They'd told him not to go at it alone, though, or else he'd _27 Hours_ himself. He pauses. That can't be right, 27 hours doesn't sound that bad.

There's a very unsubtle sort of irony that in going out to find himself, he's somehow managed to get himself utterly, utterly lost.

He kicks himself for not having gotten an Uber, though he genuinely wonders if that's even a thing they have in Ireland. He can just about see Liam’s disappointed face, his lips going crooked with judgment as he'd say, “It’s Ireland, mate, not a third world country.”

“How would I tell the Uber driver to come get me anyway?” Louis grumbles, hiking his pack up even though it’s not slipped an inch. “Take the slightly bumpier road at the cross, go until your feet feel like they’re going to fall off, if you pass the six sheep, you’ve gone too far?”

Louis makes an executive decision, stomping down what could be a road or just a conveniently even and straight swath of dead grass.

His white Vans have been dyed very decidedly brown a few days ago, but to be frank, when planned to do a tour of Ireland before he headed off to Rome, Louis’d thought he would doing more of a pub tour, and less of a _proper_ tour. Certainly not dropped by the truck he’d hitched a ride with in the middle of some rolling muddy fields, a haze of fog so thick and wet in the air, it might as well have been raining.

There’s something about this place -- this bog, marsh, moor, whatever the hell it is, Louis’ never pretended to be gifted at geography -- that sets him on edge, gets the hair on the back of his neck standing up. He shoves his hands a bit further into his pockets and keeps his head ducked.

He's never been so delighted to be correct in his life. Once he crests over the next hill, he finds a small village at the bottom of it, too few buildings for Louis’ liking, the kind of place where it looks like everyone knows everyone’s business. There are a few chimneys going, lights enough that it looks promising, as far as civilization and a hot meal are concerned. The sun’s sinking faster now, light slipping from him like the last grains of sand in an hourglass.

“It’s bloody fucking freezing out here,” he tells himself, reminded again by that irritating voice in his head -- he thinks they call it a conscience, but it sounds too much like Liam to be useful -- he'd been told to pack something heavier than a hoodie.

Louis slides a little in the mud, but rights himself quickly. “D’you know what the weather is like in Rome right now? A breezy 21, a breezy goddamn 21.”

He wonders if it's possible to get homesick for a place he's never been before.

“Sun in my face. No mist. A beautiful bird to split a spaghetti noodle with.” He croons, echoing across the bog, excellent acoustics, “ _Thiiiiiis is the niiiight, it’s a beauuuutiful niiiiight._ _Aaaand they caaall it beeeeella nooootte._ ”

\--

He first building he comes up to on the edge of the village that faces the bog is a pub, quaint looking by all accounts with the exception of the swinging sign over the door.

“Charming,” he deadpans. “Shockingly realistic.”

A looping script pronounces the pub is called the Silver Bayonet, and the name is accompanied by the severed head of what looks like a wolf, with dazed open eyes and a bloody silver bayonet speared right through its chin, blood pooling in a macabre frame.  

He pushes through the door, and the light hum of the pub full of olds goes immediately silent. All eyes turn at once to him, like some sort of eerie synchronized robot shit.

Louis slides off his hood and looks around, spots a couple of lads in the corner suspending their dart game. There’s a large bloke in the other corner with a guitar in his lap, his fingers gone still over the strings. One silver-haired, ruddy-faced gent actually harrumphs at him from behind his half-empty pint. It'd look normal, like the pubs of old men back in Donny, if they weren't making it so damn weird.

The youngest bloke in the room is tending the bar. The sleeves of his plaid shirt are rolled up to his elbows, his hands are braced against the counter like he’s expecting the worst. He’s blond, good looking in a country sort of way, with a stubble-dusted chin and a round face. He watches Louis just as carefully as Louis watches him, and Louis wonders if he’s got the same sort of running tab in his head about Louis’ features.

“Go on, Brez,” the barman says, his eyes finally turning away from Louis to the large bloke in the corner, and he slowly starts the music back up again.

Louis slides into the only open booth, one right next to the door, pulls out his dying phone, and eyes it. The internal, eternal struggle rages on before Louis decides he should let his phone be for an emergency, that there’s nothing Instagram can do for him at this point.

He’s never exactly been unhappy to be the center of attention, he’s not above admitting that, but there's something a bit odd about this kind of attention.

He doesn't feel like he'll get to enjoy it, but he always secretly knew this was what Ireland was like. Like that scene in _Titanic_ , the third class party. He’d heard a thumping tune coming from Brez with the guitar before he’d come in, but now it sounds like a funeral dirge. There should be laughter. And dancing. And Louis should arm wrestle someone.

He looks up at the sound of the bartender clearing his throat at Louis, the bartender somehow having found his way over to him. Maybe he walked. He tilts his head and says, “You’re a bit old for a gap year, aren’t ya?”

“I wonder if any of these blokes’ll arm wrestle me,” Louis answers.

The bartender’s eyebrows quirk, like he’s a bit amused. It looks good on him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Niall,” says a sharp voice to their left. It’s the ruddy-faced gent who harrumphs.

Niall the bartender looks down at the table like he's just been told he's been a very bad dog, and Louis is honestly offended on his behalf, about to start a war for him, when Niall mumbles, “What can I get you?”

“Have you got a tea? Or a coffee? Something to warm me old bones up.”

“We’ve got spirits and beer.”

“I’ll have a beer then. Guinness, that’s the dirty water of your people, innit?”

Niall steels his jaw for a moment like he’s preparing to go on the offensive. “Aye.”

“Well, when in Rome, ta.” He winks and swears he sees Niall go red as he maneuvers through the sea of olds back to the bar.

Louis takes a proper look around, noting the standard pub fare -- the booths, the billiards table in the far corner, the three shotguns with silver bayonets on a rack by the door, the satanic-looking sigils carved into the wall over his head. Louis pauses.

“What’re them symbols, then?” he asks the ruddy-faced old, and again the pub goes silent. “You lot aren’t the blood sacrificing type, right? I’m getting a little bit of the small town cult vibes, but that could just be the weather. And the generally unpleasant attitude toward perfectly charming strangers.”

When he looks over to Niall, Niall’s got his red, tragically embarrassed face covered with one hand.

“You’ll find the devil anywhere, look for ‘im hard enough, by the light of the moon,” is the answer he gets, from the gent in the flat cap next to him. It’s accompanied by a steely glare that has, if Louis looks hard enough, a bit of the Catholic judgment in it.

“So it’s more a religious cult than a satanic cult, right. I’m smelling what you’re stepping in.” Louis taps his nose conspiratorially.

Niall draws his attention back by dropping a pint on the table in front of him. For the first time, Louis spies the massive silver ring on his left hand, big enough to knock out a tooth or two if you got on the wrong side of him. Louis catches his hand and admires both the ring and the calloused fingers.

“Christ, look at thing, you would’ve gone straight to the bottom.”

Niall frowns. “What?”

“He’s a lucky man, whatever bloke gave ya that,” Louis explains with a shake to his hand that has Niall snatching it away and shoving it in the pocket of the strained beige apron he’s got wrapped around his tiny hips. “I feel like I’m supposed to kiss it, like the Pope, y’know, should I kiss it?”

The ruddy-faced man slams his fist on his table and says, “That’s _enough_ ,” startling the both of them enough that they twitch.

Louis’ head snaps toward him. “Oi, watch how you’re talking to my boy here.”

“Go on with ye,” he grunts, “no place for you here.”

“You can't,” Niall fires back. “Not tonight.”

“I can and I will, lad. There’s no place for you here,” he repeats, giving Louis a gruff nod, just in case, perhaps, Louis wasn’t quite sure who he was talking to. A larger man than Brez with the guitar rises, like he’s fixing to haul Louis out by his ear if Louis doesn’t volunteer to go first.

Louis looks back and forth between the three of them, then at the sea of irritable faces. “I can see when I'm not wanted. And hear it. Considering. You've basically just said I'm unwanted.” He takes a slurping sip of the beer, then another for luck. “How much for the pint?”

“On the house,” says someone who’s not Niall, but Louis waits until Niall nods in agreement.

“Have you got Uber in this town?” They look at him blankly. “Uber? Taxi? A bloody witch’s broom? How the hell do I get out?”

“How the hell did you come in?” croaks the gent with the flat cap.

Louis snatches his pack, doesn’t bother putting it on. If they don’t want him here, _fine_ , he’ll go. He’ll get on Yelp and give them what for, if he could find out what town he was in. Perhaps there’ll be hell to pay with the tourism board.

“Oi,” Niall calls out, stopping Louis just before he slips out the door.

“Yeah, mate?”

“Beware the bog,” Niall says, his voice low and rough and serious. “Keep to the roads.”

“Niall,” someone tries to censure again.

“He deserves as much,” Niall snaps without taking his eyes off Louis. “Stay out the bog, I mean it.”

\--

Louis immediately gets lost in the bog. Like just as soon as Niall says _stay out the bog_ , Louis goes and loses himself right in the middle of the bog. It’s not as though he did it on purpose, like, they told him to come back the way he came, so he did. He figured sooner or later, he’d find another small town that isn’t hideously xenophobic.

There hasn’t even been a hint of a road, not for quite some time, and Louis thinks it was awfully rude to scare him a bit. They probably thought it was some kind of joke, talking shit at tourists just to rile them up. It’s not very funny. And Louis is a damn riot, so he’s got quite a good grasp on funny.

Louis stumbles up an incline, nothing but the light of his phone guiding his way. Just as he’s entertaining the thought that, at the very least, it really can’t get any worse, the sky opens up and dumps rain on him.

His battery dies shortly after, the light goes out, and Louis is drenched both in darkness and in rain.

“Fucking hell.” Louis slaps at his phone, as if it were able to power back on by the sheer force of his anger, but it’s useless. “I fucking hate Ireland. I hate it so much. Everything to do with it. Never bloody coming back to Ireland.”

He stands there blinking in the rain, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the darkness, his way only occasionally lit by the moon behind rain clouds. Shivers roll through him, first at the rain, second at the long and ominous howl that echoes through the bog.

It’s just -- “It’s probably a dog,” Louis tells himself. “Because there are no wolves in Ireland. No lions, tigers, bears. A sheep dog pulling overtime in the middle of a rainstorm.”

The howl rings out again behind him, and it sounds too close. Way too bloody close. It’s followed by a grumbling, something too animalistic to write off as thunder.

“ _Fuck_.”

He picks up his pace, but then he hears the snarling in front of him too. This thing -- it must defy the laws of physics or something, to be everywhere at once. Unless. God, unless there were two of them.

He slides on the moss as he swerves another random direction, his fingers clutching his pack to his back so it doesn’t slap at him uncomfortably, but at this point, he’s about to dump it to run faster. His thighs burn and he curses how long it’s been since he’s taken a few laps around the pitch, vows that if he ever makes it out of this alive, he’ll start running with Liam.

He drops everything at some point, everything in his hands, his pack, and speeds back toward where he thinks the village might be. He doesn’t get enough traction with his shitty Vans on the wet mud, but it doesn’t mean much for long as soon as the beast collides into him.

Louis hits the ground hard, scrambling to get to his knees to crawl away, but he’s knocked over again and trod on. He can’t see much but the yellow light of its eyes, then the bloody snout it shoves closer to his face.

He doesn’t think of much -- not escape, not home, not fear, not regret. He doesn’t have time.

His face is pushed to one side to eat dirt, deep claws digging into the cheek to hold him still as the thing’s fangs sink deep into his shoulder. A scream erupts from his throat, burning its way up and out, but nothing matches the pain at the hands of the beast, tearing skin away.

He thinks maybe he’s died and that’s why the beast leaps off of him, but it whimpers, stumbling, then there’s another gunshot that reminds Louis he’d heard one just a moment before. He’s losing light quickly, struggling for breath as his throat seems to gurgle thickly, like it’s filling with blood.

The last thing he sees before he properly dies is the bartender, Niall, with a shotgun in one hand and a silver bayonet in the other.

\---

Louis dreams deep of running, running so hard and so fast he could become something else. He’s in the bog again, but he feels like the master of it. It feels like his home.

He follows a scent, sweet and familiar, pulling him like a siren song across the bog.  His toes dig into the mud, finding a natural traction. There’s no chill in the air against his skin betraying the autumn weather. He feels nothing but the pull, stronger than blood, than breathing, than hunger, and Louis serves it dutifully.

He crests a hill and comes to a stop, ready to devour.

Niall stands before him with a shotgun and a silver bayonet in his hands. Louis pauses.

Louis opens his eyes, waits for the disorientation of waking to shake from him, for the thick scent of the dream to leave him. Even after moments of adjustment to the bright light streaming in through foreign windows, Louis realizes he still doesn’t know where he is.

It’s a bedroom, he’s in a bed, someone’s fluffy white duvet tucking him in. There’s a steady beeping to his left, a monitor tracking his heartbeat that slowly ticks faster the more awake he feels.

There’s a quiet creak from the other side of the room. Louis’ head whips quickly to look.

A lanky lad stands at the doorway with his hands behind his back, looking at Louis like an actual deer in headlights -- Louis recognizes the look from the deer he met a few days ago trying to hitch a ride on the last road he’d seen.

 _What_ , Louis almost snaps at him, but he can’t find his words. The stranger approaches him carefully instead, up to the edge of the bed. Louis stiffens, squints at his wide eyes and the shaking hand he holds out to Louis. Louis sniffs at it for a few moments before he relaxes back into his pillow. Smells fine.

The stranger hums curiously, pulling a pen somewhere out of his dark hair and marking notes onto a chart for a full minute before he says something. It's a testament to how god awful tired Louis is that he doesn't call him on it first.

He clears his throat and looks up again. “I’m Dr. Styles.”

“Am I in hospital?” Louis croaks.

The doctor reaches over and pours him a small glass of water that Louis gulps down quickly, gratefully. He makes more notes on the chart before he answers, “Not exactly.”

“Am I in London?”

“No? You're still in Ireland.” Dr. Styles sounds just about as confused as Louis feels.

“You're English,” he explains. In case Dr. Styles has somehow managed to forget.

“Ah, yes, they call me their Token Brit. I'm still not sure if that's meant to be an insult, but I wear the mantle nonetheless.” He straightens a little, like maybe he’s proud of the fact.

“You’re weird.”

He shrugs, a _fair enough_ sort of gesture. “I’m going to check your vitals now.”

He bustles around doing just that, tapping at Louis like he’s unsure of what he’s doing sometimes. Louis struggles to stay still, struggles to remember what could have happened last night. He remembers -- he remembers the pub, the sigils. The blue of Niall’s eyes and the silver of his ring. He remembers the rain. The howl.

Louis’ eyes draw instinctively to the chain around Styles’ neck, silver, thin, a delicate cross dangling from it. It swings as the doctor leans over him, and Louis resists the urge to slide away from it. He doesn't like it, glares at it with a laser focus as a cool stethoscope rests against his chest.

Dr. Styles winces, popping one of the ends of his stethoscope out of his ear. “If you wouldn’t mind, that’s actually quite loud.”

“What is?”

“The growling, like.”

“Right, sorry.” Louis pauses. “Wait, what?”

Styles hesitates, like he’s reaching for words, until he grins wanly down at him. “No worries, just breathe normally if you will.”

Louis takes deliberate breaths in and out, closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the necklace, but that only makes his mind race harder, brings snatches of a half-remembered dream back to him in the darkness.

“Grip my hand please.”

Louis opens his eyes again and obliges.

Dr. Styles squeaks, a strangled sort of noise. “Okay, please let go,” he whispers. He stretches his red hand as soon as Louis lets go of it. Louis thinks of the blood flowing in it.  

Louis frowns at his hand, then back up at him. “I had a wild fuckin’ dream last night.”

“Mr. Tomlinson -- ”

“Louis, if you will.”

He nods and clears his throat, his lips twisting and puckering like he’s thinking real hard about something. The suspense is murderous. “Louis, you've been asleep for three weeks. You were attacked -- ”

“Bullshit,” he laughs.

“I assure you, it's not,” he says, seriously, and the words sink heavy in Louis’ stomach.

He doesn’t fucking remember being attacked, that’s not what’s at play here. He must be -- like bloody kidnapped or something, in this weird Irish town with its weird satanic symbols on pub walls, and they’re going to _Misery_ him to this bed or sommat, which will not quite work for Louis, because he’s got to be free to _run_.

“Bullshit,” Louis says, not laughing this time. He yanks the white duvet off him. A couple of IVs in his arms tug hard, like they're going to fly out, but Louis can't find it in himself to care.

“Louis, please.”

Louis snarls at the doctor when he tries to come for him, his teeth baring a warning that the low growl in his throat backs up.

“Fucking hell,” Styles says, slamming his back into the wall in his hurry to scramble away from him. Styles digs his phone out of his jeans and holds it out. “Look -- just. Look at the camera.”

Louis snatches the phone from him and switches the camera on. There are scars running down his right cheek, pink and jagged. _My face_ , he thinks, but doesn't say aloud, because he's got more pride than to let anyone exactly how vain he is. He slides a few fingers over the scratches gently.

“I was attacked?”

“By a -- yes, by. Um. Well, a madman, they’ve said.”

“A madman? I’m sorry, what fucking year is it?” He shakes his head as old, threatening words come floating back to him, _you’ll find the devil anywhere, look for ‘im hard enough, by the light of the moon._

The doctor looks worried. “2016. Why, what year do you think it is?”

Louis’s about had enough of this. “Right. This place is fucked up. I'm leaving.”

“No, you're not.”

“Yes, I am, just as soon as I find my phone.”

He pulls at his lip, a sign of guilt, if Louis has ever seen one. “It, um, got lost in the bog.”

“You _left it there_? That's just common courtesy. Victim drops his phone, you bloody pick it up and bring it with the body.”

Louis pokes at the IVs in his arm before he holds his arm back out to the doctor, shaking it a few times in invitation. One’s red, looks like he’s getting some sort of blood transfusion, but he’d have thought he’d recovered from that sort of thing by now.

“Louis --”

“It's fine, I don't need a phone, I'll just.” He pauses. “Actually it's a real crime of the 21st century that none of us memorize phone numbers anymore. Can I get on twitter on this?”

Dr. Styles snatches the phone back out of Louis’ hands, and pushes him firmly back into the pillows. “Mr. Tomlinson, please. You need to rest, you’ve been through a severe trauma. We can talk about your release, uh. Y’know, at some point.”

He’s told to stay put until further notice, which Louis has never been particularly gifted with, but he promises to try his best. Styles thanks him and nearly runs from the room.

Louis does not stay still, almost as soon as the doctor’s out, twisting to pull off the shirt they’ve put him in, tracing over the bandages that cover his shoulder. He pulls up one of the edges, craning his neck to spy at the damage underneath. There’s no blood, no visible stitches, like his face, just long deep scars

He doesn’t need to rest, he’s been resting for about three bloody weeks, practically comatose. He cranes his neck to the window, but they're covered in blackout curtains. He wonders if he can talk the good doctor into pulling them back later so he can see the bog.

\--

Louis cottons on pretty quickly that he’s sitting in some rando’s bed, when Styles brings him in some lunch on someone’s mismatched dinnerware. There’s a framed poster for Derby County on the wall. He can see the dust on the table next to him where it looks like a picture or two has been removed.

But he doesn’t guess that the rando is Niall the bartender.

He buries his hands in his pockets, his shoulders sitting right around his ears. “Hey, it’s -- s’good to see you up and at it.”

“Hell of a nap,” Louis agrees, though he hardly feels either up or at it confined to this bed that he wishes he could set alight. Only that’d be rude to Niall.

“I brought you -- I made dinner. If you’re hungry.”

Louis glances at the lunch still left on the night stand next to him, then sniffs at the air -- smells like sausages and mash and something green. “No, thank you.”

Niall looks pained and Louis worries for a moment he’s hurt Niall’s feelings, having taken the time to make him something. Louis nearly apologizes, offers to shove it in his mouth as quick as he can, but he genuinely can’t be arsed to eat anything. He nearly vommed the spaghetti all down his front a few hours ago, after the IVs were removed from his arm and he was poked at again.

He can’t risk staining Niall’s perfect white duvet. But it is quite nice that he’s not stuck eating hospital food instead. Speaking of.

“Why’m I sat in your bedroom and not in a hospital bed?”

Niall bites at his thumb like he’s in debate, the silver of his ring shining a little by the soft lamplight. “The village’s doctor wouldn't treat you.”

“Then who the hell is Dr. Styles?”

Niall mumbles something.

Louis tilts his head. “Come again?”

“Harry’s a veterinarian.”

Louis stares at him for a few beats, just soaking that in. “Oh, I bet you think that's real fuckin’ funny, don't you.”

Niall startles. “You -- remember?”

“Yeah, that the people of this town fucking hate tourists so much they’ll treat ‘em like animals? Bit hard to forget that, mate.” He tsks at Niall with a tilt of his head until that startled look drips from his face into a light smile. “It does seem a bit out of protocol.”

Niall nods. “I’m not in the habit of letting strange Englishmen into my home.”

“Well, you let _Harry_ in.”

Niall considers this, quirking an amused eyebrow. “Fair play.”

Louis stretches, carefully exercising exactly how much room he’s got on this bed and clocking how Niall’s eyes clock the movement. There’s something a little twisty in his look, one that Louis doesn’t quite know. “So, what. You’ve been sleeping on the sofa for three weeks?”

Niall bites at his thumb again, and Louis reminds himself that if he ever needed to win a ton of money in poker, Niall’d be the one to win it from, a tell like that.

“Why have you done that?” Louis prompts.

“Shouldn’t’ve let you go.” Niall blinks hard, his head ducking as shame rolls off him in waves that threaten to make Louis sick up at the scent.

“Wasn’t your fault.”

Niall squints over at him. “Wasn’t it?”

He knew, they all knew, Louis supposes. Kicked him right out of the pub, right into the throes of danger. They should have known, honestly, Louis is too pretty not to have been a victim. He’s not going to do Niall the disservice of denying it twice. “Have they caught him? This madman of mine?”

“Ehm. No, they haven’t.”

He has an image, suddenly, flash through his mind, of Niall standing in the bog, lit only by the moon, a shotgun in his hands.

Louis clears his throat. “I’m sure the police are doing everything in their power.”

Niall nods slowly, shifting on his feet a little before he nods specifically out of the room and follows his nod out. Louis realizes, just as soon as he’s alone, Niall had never taken a step further into the room.

\--

Louis goes absolutely stir crazy after a day in bed, absolutely insists on being properly let up and at it, at least the house. He feels perfectly fit -- and _looks_ perfectly fit, to be frank. He hasn’t even phoned his mum -- last thing he wants is for her to worry about him senselessly. He certainly hasn’t phoned Liam, because he’ll be the one to say _I told you so_.

He’ll be on the mend soon and off to Rome, he thinks. Even without his phone. Or his wallet. Or any of the other earthly possessions the good veterinarian says he lost on the bog.

He’s pretty sure he’s going off to Rome. These days every time he thinks about leaving this town, his stomach twists up in knots.

Niall lets him out of bed solely on the provision that he eats lunch, and Louis agrees, even though he has no interest in following through. At least he’s out of bed. Niall tries to help him up, but Louis gets two feet firmly under himself with no issue. He seems to recall something about maybe coma patients needing a bit of help with the whole moving bit, but Louis genuinely feels fine. Tip top shape.

The rest of Niall’s flat doesn’t really make it look like a flat so much as it is two rooms that happen to be next to each other. The only doors to the place are to Niall’s room and Niall’s bathroom. There’s a sofa in his kitchen and a microwave next to his telly.

Louis sits down at the sofa in Niall’s kitchen, lets Niall drag a TV tray in front of him. “I promise I’m not hungry.”

“You haven’t eaten anything since you’ve woken up,” Niall censures before disappearing off behind him.

“I’m not _hungry_.”

“You’ll want this.” He thumps a plate before Louis, a steak so rare it nearly looks bloody.

Louis stares at it for several long moments, then grins back up at him. “Looks brilliant, actually, thanks, mate.”

“Welcome,” Niall says, already retreating back to the kitchen.

“Are you going to eat with me, like civilized folk, or are you not in the habit of dining with strange Englishmen as well?”

Niall gives him what honestly sounds like a pity _ha_ and says, “I already ate.” Which Louis knows is a damn lie because he can hear a light grumbling in Niall’s stomach. He’s going to be offended by that in just a moment, but he picks up the steak instead, sinking his teeth in and tearing off a good chunk. It tastes heavenly, and Louis tells him even with his mouth full because he’s just that pleased that he needs Niall to know.

“Thanks,” Niall says gruffly and then doesn’t say anything at all.

It takes no time to consume the whole steak, but delicious as it is, it feels as though it were missing something. Like it wasn’t fully seasoned, although Louis knows the absence of a bit of pepper isn’t going to do his head in this badly trying to think of it. It just wasn’t _enough_.

He gives his fingers and his face a good wipe, tossing the bloody napkin onto the plate and burping loudly. His compliments to the chef.

“Quite the beard I got going here,” Louis says to Niall when he comes to collect the plate. He scratches at the thick stubble over his chin that he doesn’t quite recall being there when he woke up this morning. “Might shave it.”

Niall shrugs. “Looks good.”

Louis grins. “Might not, then.”

He manages to coax Niall onto the couch next to him and chats at him for the longest time. Niall opens in a way Louis thought he might not have been capable of, famously tight-lipped thus far. But when his shoulders relax and whatever guilt or tension Niall has built up inside himself easies, he’s quite funny.

He laughs easy too, at all of Louis’ jokes, which might be Louis’ favorite bit. Maybe that and the way his ears get all red when Louis wraps his fingers around Niall’s wrists sometimes when the two of them howl with laughter.

\--

Niall leaves him at night to put in a shift at the pub, and Louis is absolutely crushed to see him go. If he’s going to be trapped in this place for all eternity, the least anyone can do is exempt his favorite flirting target from leaving.

Before Louis really has any time to think up what kind of mischief he’s going to get into on his own, he’s replaced by Harry, who lets himself in with a key. He’d given Louis a right panic too, had him tensed and crouched on the sofa until he got a whiff of his scent with the wind from the door opening.

Louis rises from the sofa and crosses his arms. “You could ring the bell, I’d come for the door.”

“Ehm,” Harry says, craning his neck to look back at the door. “No, I’m fine, thanks.”

Louis eyes the door suspiciously, doesn’t like the vibe it gives off, but he’d have probably approached it if necessary.

Harry’s got a dog in his arm and it yaps like a car alarm, incessant, ineffectual, and everyone hates the thing for doing so. “This is Malachi.”

“That’s a burden of a name.”

“I think he looks like a Malachi, don’t you?”

He’s about a foot long, has three bald spots and a cone larger than his entire body around his neck, looks like he weighs maybe two pounds soaking wet. Louis twitches just looking at him.

“Yeah,” Louis says, “spitting image.”

“He’s a bit poorly and he can’t be on his own at the moment. He’s a little dog drunk.” Harry sets the dog down and it wobbles sideways straight into the sofa. “Let me get a look at you.”

Louis turns mechanically a three-sixty, even though he knows Harry means medically. He sits on the couch to let Harry prod at him after, humming about how he really shouldn’t be out of bed just yet.

Harry slaps his hand when he goes to worry at his bandage, digging his fingers in deep where his shoulder itches. “If you don’t cut that out, I’ll get you a cone. Like Malachi. You don’t want to be like Malachi, do you?”

Louis looks down at Malachi, with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, as he sits leaned to the side like he can’t right himself. “No.”

Harry lifts Louis’ lips to get a look at his gums, and that’s where Louis draws the line, grumbles at Harry until he leans away.

Harry holds up his hands placatingly. “Sorry, force of habit.”

Malachi yaps and yaps, at Louis’ feet. Harry bends over and says, “Malachi, hush.” It doesn’t work.

“Malachi, hush,” Louis growls, crouched down to his level, and Malachi’s mouth snaps shut as he drops his head to the floor in submission, the cone whacking him a bit along the way. Louis straightens, pleased. “It’s about confidence, Harry.”

Harry looks at him with the big wide eyes as he too often does. “Yeah.”

\--

He runs again, his path clear enough this time, over a fallen tree and further down the hill than he’s ventured before. He’s hungry tonight, licks at his chops like there’s phantom blood waiting for him.

He finds Niall again, standing before him, a shotgun and silver bayonet in his hand. He points and Louis turns. There’s a howl in the distance. Louis knows what to do.

Louis cracks open an eye, hears Niall rooting around in the kitchen like he’s looking for a midnight snack. His eyes flick up to the clock at the bedstand. A 3 am snack.

He rolls himself out of bed and into the kitchen, pressing up against Niall’s back as he puts his nose directly into Niall’s business. His business is shelling an avocado shirtless and in boxers at 3 am.

“Oh, hey,” Niall says, startling a bit. “Make a noise, why don’t ya.”

“Neil, where you been,” Louis mumbles, pressing into him further.

“It's Niall.”

Though they have never admittedly been introduced, Louis still makes a face even if he's sure Niall can't see it. “I know.”

He starts slicing thin bits of avocado off, stacking them on a small plate. “Ah. Was working,” he says, as though Louis can’t smell it all over him, the smoke and the alcohol and the stench of olds.

“At the Silver Bayonet.”

Louis can sense the hesitation in Niall’s body that he figures Niall doesn’t want him to. Niall gives a rather calm, “That’s what it’s called.”

“Why’s it called that? Out of curiosity. It’s just in England we name things after, like. The appendages of cricketers and such, so this is a cultural learning opportunity.”

Niall chews on one piece of avocado, then another, like he’s mulling over the explanation. “There was wolves in Ireland once.”

“Until St. Patrick drove them all out?”

“Nah, that was snakes.”

“Right, right,” Louis clucks. “Carry on.”

“They said a buck shot couldn’t kill ‘em alone, that you’d have to pierce the heart once they're down.” He stops up the explanation, almost abruptly, and lets Louis fill in the rest of the gaps.

Louis makes a face. “I don’t like that.”

Niall lifts his chin, something cold in his eyes. “You do what you have to do, to keep the village safe.” But then he blinks and the look is gone, long lashes fluttering as he looks down at his empty plate.

“Come on, let’s watch something,” Louis says, tugging at his shoulder, just to recover the mood. He feels a bit sick himself thinking about it.

“You should get some sleep.”

Louis sits on the back of the couch and rolls down onto the cushions, landing with his face in a cushion with chevrons on it that sort of reminds him of Liam, in an interior decoration kind of way. “Slept long enough,” he says, muffled, and waits until Niall settles down on the other end of the couch from him, wrapping himself in a blanket.

Louis shifts to get comfortable, to give Niall room he doesn’t want to give him, convinced more and more the longer he looks at Niall that if he could just get close to him again, he could drink up that scent of his. It’s not like they have too many boundaries left. Louis’ been using his toothbrush since he woke up.

Niall flips through about thirty channels, looking like he’s not going to settle down anytime soon, until he very abruptly does at a black and white film. “How d’you feel about the Rat Pack?”

“Sounds like good craic, boyo,” Louis lilts.

“Don’t -- don’t try to do Irish things, you’ll just... embarrass yourself.”

“Dunno what yer talking about, me accent is perfect,” Louis grits out brilliantly, Irish as he can.

Niall puts his whole hand over Louis’ mouth. Louis licks it.

\--

One film bleeds into another, until they’re chasing the morning, yawning in sync, but both refusing to move. It’s comfortable here, more comfortable than Louis’ felt in days, weeks, years. Light horrifying trauma aside, this is the kind of thing Louis was looking for when he left home.

Niall’s legs are thrown up on the ottoman in front of them, so Louis takes his opportunity to curl up on him, his arm bracketing his head in Niall’s lap. One of Niall’s hands seems to rest naturally on his side, his thumb gently trailing up and down Louis’ side over his shirt.

Louis traces gently along the long, thin scar up Niall’s knee with his free hand. “What happened here? Attacked by a very surgical madman?”

Niall snorts. “Y’know, I didn’t quite trust that violent glint in the doctor’s eye when he prepped me. Think maybe he had them alternative motives for cutting me open.”

Louis hums. “How’d ya get it? Fighting wolves out on the bog?”

Niall’s hand stills. “Something like that.”

Louis thinks and thinks of something to give him in return, a little morsel of himself in return for this precious gift Niall’s very nearly given him. For all they’d talked today -- or, well, yesterday, technically -- Louis still doesn’t feel like he knows him. Niall feels guarded, every which way Louis tries to come for him.

“D’you know that sort of creepy crawly feeling you get when, like, you see ants crawling, and then you think ants are crawling on you?”

“Yeah,” Niall laughs ruefully, “thanks for introducing that nightmare back to me.”

“Sort of feels like that.”

“When?”

That’s the small truth of his life, since he’s woken up, and it’s not something he likes to pay a lot of attention to. Like there’s something wrong with his skin, and he’d shed it if he could. “All the time.”

Niall removes his hand altogether and Louis glowers at the loss. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re always saying sorry, Nialler. Why are you sorry, you haven’t dumped a surprise colony of ants on me, have you?”

“Not as such.”

Louis wiggles around until he’s squinting critically up at Niall’s face. “You sort of talk in riddles. Like a sphinx. I feel like I need a decoder to work out what you’re really trying to say. Anybody ever tell you that?”

“That is an oddly specific thing to tell a bloke, but.” He tilts his head. “S’pose nobody’s really talked to me long enough to notice, I’d say. That lot tend to keep to themselves.”

“The olds?”

“Aye. And Harry -- ” Niall stops to yawn for a second, then just keeps talking through the yawn, “Habby balks ebough -- for the both of us.”

“I’ll bet.” Louis stretches against him and gives a yawn of his own in solidarity. Or in that way that yawns are contagious even if you’re not tired. “You could. I mean, you don't have to give me your bed _all_ to meself -- ”

“I can't let you stay on the sofa,” Niall interrupts quickly.

Louis barks a laugh at him. “I was gonna offer to share, mate, I ain't giving up a bed for a sofa.”

Niall laughs back, loud, delighted. “Right.” He grins down at Louis and looks for a while, like maybe his response is buffering behind his lit eyes. He softens enough that Louis thinks he’s going to say no, but he says, “Yeah, okay.”

Something’s cracked open between them, just in the last five minutes, that has Niall settling beside him in bed, attempting to maintain a respectful distance until Louis burrows into him. He doesn't let his eyes close until he can feel the press of Niall’s cold fingers against his hip and the slow relaxed exhales that threaten to put goosebumps on the back of Louis’ neck.

\--

They wake so late in the day, but Louis manages to keep him for a few hours before he has to go off to work, whispering with the fluffy white duvet over their heads like they're biding their time pretending to still be asleep so no one will say the sleepover is over and their mums have to come get them.

“I’m just. Gonna be thirty soon.”

Niall makes a face. “In how many years?”

“Okay, but seriously, like. I don’t know what I’m doing. All I’ve known is Donny, and. It’s fine, y’know, and that’s brilliant. Love me home, but I wanted to see the world. I wanted to get a bit lost. Not _this_ lost, mind you, just. A _bit_ lost.”

“Sure,” Niall encourages.

“The more I think about leaving here, the more I think about staying.” Louis shrugs, the duvet rising and falling with him, and buttons up. It occurs to him a little that perhaps he’s just like Harry, then, talking enough for the two of them, and that’s why he’s got to savor the small peeks inside Niall’s brain.

“The more I think about staying here, the more I think about leaving,” Niall admits after a while, one of his fingers worrying at a snag in his sheets. “Could go anywhere. Cambodia. Thailand. Places where they don’t -- I suppose every old town has got their stories. Just a bit tired of this one’s.”

“You’ve never left here?”

“It’s not the kind of town you get to leave.”

Louis widens his eyes mockingly at Niall. “You’re don’t say.”

He pauses. Actually, they were quite keen Louis left. It’s just Harry and Niall determined to confine him. He has to purposefully remind himself that he’s a patient, that he’s been injured though he feels perfectly fine, that this sort of thing is normal. He thinks it’s normal.

“My brother -- he’s got a family and all, they left when my nephew was born, they didn’t want to raise him. Here. Mum left when my da… It’s just, this is home, only home I’ve known.” Niall trails off, shaking his head. He looks like he’s done for a moment, but then he says, something defensive to it, like he’s said it before, “This town has everything I need.”

“You trying to convince me or yourself of that, lad?”

Niall traces a finger lightly down Louis’ nose, perhaps just because he can, perhaps because he thinks it’s a better answer than anything else he can give. Louis chases after the finger, nipping to catch it between his teeth.

Suddenly Niall isn’t smiling anymore. The shift is abrupt.

\--

Niall won’t let them sit in bed all day because he’s cruel and also, irritatingly, a responsible capitalist who chooses to do things like work. Before long, he heads off into the loo to change, even though he’s been half-naked for hours and hours, and groom.

Louis relaxes back into bed. He can't picture how it is he's made it here, how he's still here after all this. Somehow nearly mortally wounded by some madman who must honestly be Edward Scissorhands, by the looks of Louis’ scars.

He starts to dive into a hole of questions, each one he tries to reason through only sparking seventeen more questions. Niall says he’s fine, he’s fine.

Louis pauses, his head tilting up to catch the new scent on the air. He follows it right up to the door of the bathroom, then through it, without even knocking first, because really, he couldn’t find a single shit to give.

Niall's washing out his razor in the sink. He has a small bit of tissue pressed to his neck, covering what couldn’t be more than a pinprick of blood. Louis sticks his nose in it anyway, needs it, the way it lights a fire in his veins.

“What the -- ” Niall sputters. But he doesn’t shove off.

Louis flicks away the tissue and replaces it with his tongue, giving his neck one long lathe before he latches on and sucks. He gets only a few traces of the blood before nothing’s coming out, but Louis doubles down at the gasp he can feel against his lips as it ripples up Niall’s throat, at Niall’s hand sliding against his waist.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Niall says. Louis hums his agreement. Exactly correct.

Niall’s hands come up around his face, one hand sliding around his neck, the other burning at his bearded jaw, and moves to kiss him.

Louis jerks away and hisses, his eyes on Niall’s silver ring. “Take that shit off.”

“Yeah,” Niall says, all breath, removing the ring and tossing it to the floor. It clangs thick against the floor like it's weighted heavier than it should be, but Louis pays no mind.

He pays his attention to Niall's lips instead, nipping at them, to his hips, gripping at them. Chasing his scent until it shifts from something that's Niall's to something that's theirs. There's no part of him he doesn't want to devour.

Niall’s hands slide over him like he’s got the same mind, the awkward rustling of his hand passing over Louis’ dressing only a minor irritation. Louis wants the same luxury of getting his hands on the chest he’d woken up pressed against. His fingers grip into Niall’s soft white jumper until it tears apart under them, exposing the pale skin underneath, has him looking like he’s never seen a day in the sun.

“Shit,” Niall swears as Louis slides the jumper off his shoulders, lets it slump onto the floor.

Louis grins and goes for him, lapping at his neck again before pressing his mouth to every inch of Niall’s chest, soaking up the scent of him. “You smell so fucking good.”

Louis’ hands go for Niall’s trousers when his mouth takes him that far down, but Niall stops him.

“I’ll, um, I’ll get those.” Niall throws a sheepish grin down at him and works at his flies. Louis works at his joggers, Niall’s borrowed pair of joggers really, his fingers shaking violently with the anticipation.

They're on each other again in less than a minute, only their pants between them. Louis savors the way Niall’s fingers dig into Louis’ back when he gets in a good grind.

Niall’s eyes slide shut. “This is you, yeah? You’re here.”

“Yeah, m’here,” he mumbles into Niall’s neck. “Who else would it be?”

He's going to take Niall, claim him as his own, make him so thoroughly Louis’ that it won't ever occur to Niall to even ask if it's him. It's fucking _understood_.

Louis maneuvers him up against the wall, drapes his front over Niall’s back, and ruts as earnestly as he can against him. Niall breathes his name, and Louis growls into his neck in response, grips his hips tighter. His lips trail down his neck and part so he can dig his teeth into the meat of his back. It’s not hard enough to draw blood, and Louis is sorry for it.

“Wait, stop _.”_

Louis snaps back, the moment they separate blows away the haze that caught him up. “I'm. I'm sorry.”

Niall keeps his hands pressed to the wall in front of him, won’t seem to turn around. “ _I'm_ sorry, I shouldn't -- I shouldn't have done that.”

He takes a deep inhale to calm himself, but it only serves to rile him up a bit more, the scent of the two of them together. “I'm actually just. Gonna go rub one out in your room with my face in your pillow.”

Niall snorts as he turns around to face him, but rubs at the back of his neck uncomfortably, his fingers maybe tracing where Louis had bitten. _Why’ve I done that_ , Louis asks himself before he thinks better of it.

“Um. Harry coming by?” Louis asks. He feels like he’s got to fill the silence now, like maybe he’ll be able to smooth over absolutely jumping Niall without permission. Like maybe he could forget Niall didn’t kiss him back just as desperately.

“Probably for a bit, yeah.”

“Ask him to give me about an hour.”

“An hour,” Niall says, raising his eyebrows, either impressed or dubious, Louis can’t tell.

Louis swats at him and Niall dodges to the side, bending over to swipe up his jeans and torn jumper and ring, and even though they’ve been talking about it this whole time, a wave of heat rolls through Louis like a reminder that he nearly had Niall, that they nearly had each other.

\--

Louis doesn’t sleep, not even after Harry leaves.

He wants to go, though, out of this bloody flat -- no offense to Niall, because he wants out to go to Niall. Traipse his way down what looks like cobblestones -- though he can’t get a good look because getting close to the windows makes him feel nauseated -- down the way to the Silver Bayonet.

To do what once he gets there, Louis doesn’t know. Pester him, kiss him, date him, shag him over a table, take him for a walk in the bog. All excellent choices.

He walks by the door some three times, but turns abruptly every time his hand reaches for the doorknob. It’s like the guilt of disobeying Niall is enough to twist his stomach and make him shy away. He’s never quite felt that sort of guilt before. Both to his own benefit and his own detriment, he’s always been a sort of _do whatever you want and fuck everyone else_ kind of lad.

He touches every single thing in Niall’s house instead, until it smells like a mixture of the two of them, and fiddles with the telly until he’s certain there’s nothing good on. Niall’s only got a combination of dusty old tomes that Louis won’t be caught dead reading and about four thousand shitty mystery thriller type paperbacks that you can get for less than a pound at a charity shop.

Instead he goes to wait for Niall in their bed. For hours. Until he hears the sound of the door opening and closing and not much else. It takes maybe eighteen steps total to get from the front door to the bedroom, and he doesn’t hear Niall take any of them for minutes.

Louis looks up and waits until Niall has enough confidence to hover at the door. He seems surprised to see Louis still awake.

His eyes scan the room. “You didn't actually. Rub one out in here, did you?”

“I did not. Turns out absolute mortification is something of a boner killer.” Louis grins in spite of himself.

“If you weren't -- if you hadn't.” He chews at his thumb for a moment. “I would've. In a heartbeat.”

It’s nice enough, Louis supposes, that he’s respecting the sanctity of patient-caretaker boundaries or whatever, but Louis would much rather just get his mouth on him. “Same. In case that wasn't stunningly obvious.”

“Consolation cuddle?”

He’s always game for a cuddle. Liam’d had a steep learning curve when it came to cuddle time, so Louis appreciates above all else exactly how open Niall is to cuddling. These days, he feels empty without someone pressed against him, without feeding off the heat of someone else. Louis holds out his arms in invitation. “Please.”

Niall strips and goes in for the cuddle. Louis shifts and shifts until he’s found the best spot to stick his face in Niall’s chest, to the place where he can scent him best and relax finally, after hours and hours of being on edge.

Louis shifts his shoulder. “Harry says I can take this bandage off tomorrow.”

“That’ll be more comfortable, won’t it,” Niall says, both his soft voice and the slow drag of his fingers through Louis’ shaggy hair are soothing.

“When -- like, when’ll I be discharged, I guess, is the right term? Discharged from your room.”

“I dunno.”

Louis presses his face into Niall’s chest, hoping that gets his point across. It’s not that he wants to be discharged from _Niall_ so much as he wants to go outside. He wants to kick a football or, god help him, go for a walk. He’d rather like to keep Niall with him, attached as he is. To this complete stranger.

“Would you go to Rome with me?” Louis asks.

“No.” But Niall’s laughing, so he switches tactics.

“Cambodia, then?”

There is a genuine pause, a moment where Louis can practically taste the _yes_ hanging in the air between them. But Niall says, “No, I can’t leave.”

So he switches tactics again. “What if I stayed?”

Niall hums and says quietly, like he’s admitting a secret. “I’d like that very much.”

\--

Niall straddles him, watches him critically. His heart pounds.

Louis bares his fangs; the anticipation of sinking his teeth into Niall makes his mouth water. He’ll taste him again.

With his hand, Niall pushes Louis’ face into the bed, exposing his scarred shoulder, with a strength Louis can’t match. His silver ring burns Louis’ cheek with a sickening hiss.

He drags his silver bayonet gently down Louis’ neck, tracing over his shoulder, down to his heart. Louis relaxes, the fight in him drains instantly, and he waits. Niall sinks the silver bayonet straight into his heart.

Louis groans. It can’t even be 8 am.

“I’ll get it,” Niall mumbles, though he doesn’t seem to have any interest in moving either. The doorbell buzzes some three more times before Niall rolls himself out from under Louis’ arm.

“Noooo,” he says, slapping blindly for Niall.

He feels Niall come in close, leaning over Louis’ side of the bed to press a kiss to his temple. “Go back to sleep.”

“You go back to sleep.” It’s not his best comeback, honestly, but he’s half asleep. He flirts with the idea of going straight back to sleep until he catches the hostile scent the second it steps over the threshold. Louis straightens up in bed, head cocked to listen, his body tense to move for Niall’s defense at a moment’s notice.

“We need to talk,” says the stranger. His voice might be familiar if all grumpy old Irish men didn’t basically sound the same.

Niall hesitates. “Not right now.”

“So it’s true, then, you’re keeping the wolf here.”

“I think you need to mind your own.”

Louis frowns, incomprehensible riddles again, they all speak in them. He doesn’t get the metaphors, and he wasn’t that bad at literature in school. But the next thing the stranger says doesn’t sound like a metaphor, it sounds like the truth.

“Shoulda killed him the minute you saw he were bit, you know what he’ll do.”

“He’s still a person,” Niall argues.

“No person can do what that thing does. No person _would_. He’s a wolf first, you’d do best to remember that.”

“I remember that just fine.”

“If your da were here -- ”

“I said I remember,” Niall snaps with a fire Louis’ not heard from him, not even on the night they met. “You don’t come into my home and tell me what is or isn’t. He’s my wolf.”

Heat rips through Louis like it’s in confirmation of that claim, he _does_ belong to Niall.

“He’ll kill us all,” the stranger says, like it’s the final nail in the coffin. “They both will.”

Niall leaves that unanswered. He doesn’t argue against him. There’s a few moments where the only sound in the flat is breathing, until there’s the snick of a door opening and closing.

Niall doesn’t have the confidence to come back into the bedroom and Louis doesn’t have the confidence to go ask him what the fuck is going on. But he gets up anyway.

He breezes past where Niall sits on the sofa, hunched over with his head in his hands like he’s Drake and he’s feeling some kind of way about Nicki Minaj. Louis pours himself a glass of water instead and doesn’t say, _I think the people in your village want to kill me and I don’t understand why_.

“Louis, we -- we gotta talk.”

“I’m good, thanks. I always thought silence was overrated, but at this particular minute, I’m really feeling it.”

“Something -- happened to you. On the bog.”

Louis sets his glass down because he doesn’t want Niall to see the way his hands shake. “I got attacked by a madman. I know this song and dance, Niall.”

“No. Well.” Niall runs his hands through his hair, leaving it sticking up seven different directions, before he scrubs down his face. “That’s sort of true. They go mad after a while.”

“What are you saying?” He rounds the corner of the sofa so Niall doesn’t have to crane his neck to look at him, but looking Niall directly in the face is worse, so much worse.

Niall rambles, doesn’t make a lick of sense. “They’re fine, nobody thinks twice of them, and everyone thinks they’re going to be the ones to do it this time, to live with it. But then they run the bog under the full moon, and they lose themselves every time. There’s no coming back.”

Louis swallows and folds his arms around himself. “I know you think you’re clarifying, but I assure you, you’re really not.”

“You’re a werewolf, Louis, you got bit, and you’ll turn too,” Niall says firmly. “Tonight and the night after. Twice under the full moon.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’m being serious.”

Louis waits and waits for a smile to break, for anything, any sign it’s a joke. Nothing comes.

Whatever amount of goodwill Niall’s built within him snaps. Disillusionment sinks in hard and heavy once the truth is out there, stark and unforgiving. He's been Stockholm Syndrome’d by a bunch of nutters. And what’s worse is they all think this is real.

“Niall, stop. I -- I like a good laugh and all, but. This is too much. It’s not funny.”

Niall goes distant, looking anywhere but at Louis’ face as he runs another anxious hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, I should have told you earlier, but I didn’t -- how do you tell a guy?”

“Not this fucking way, if you’re looking for feedback,” Louis shouts, his voice edging on hysterical.

He’s -- fuck, he’s been so fucking _stupid_ about all of it. Feels like an absolute fool for having fallen for it. For having thought even for a moment that he’d stay here, for having believed Niall when he said he wanted it.

“I’m leaving.”

Niall’s face falls. “You can’t.”

“Like hell I can’t. This whole town is fucked up, absolutely raving mad.”

“No, it’s.” He scrunches up his face for a moment like it pains him to say, “The doorway is lined with silver. So you _can’t_.”

“Then I’ll use a fucking _window_.”

“Those are lined with silver too.” Niall rises and steps toward him, a hand reaching.

“Don’t fucking touch me, don’t fucking look at me.” Louis turns on his heel and speeds back to Niall’s room, antithetical to his next claim, “I’m leaving.”

He slams the door in Niall’s face and leans on it with both hands, puts his whole weight behind it.

Niall tries the doorknob to no avail, and Louis holds firm. “You can’t.”

“Yes, I _can,_ ” Louis growls, each denial grating on him harder. He can do whatever the hell he wants, including, but not limited to, getting the hell out of Ireland and not turning into a damn werewolf.

“You’ll. Louis, tonight you’ll turn and. You could kill.”

He waits until he doesn’t feel the pressure of Niall trying to push in before he quickly slides one of Niall’s chest of drawers in front of the door. He catches it just in time for Niall to try to push in again at the noise. The woods make an ugly smacking noise against each other.

“Fuck, Louis, open the door.”

Louis starts to tear apart the room, scenting as he goes, only it’s useless, because the whole place smells like him now. “Where’s my shit?”

“Lost in the bog.”

Louis slams his fists into the wall. The wall cracks. “That’s _bullshit_ and you know it.”

Eventually Niall goes quiet, but Louis can still hear him just outside the door, his heart thumping overtime with fear. Exasperation. Anxiety. Louis nearly laughs at him -- imagine being on the receiving end of nonsense like that.

Louis’ skin buzzes harder, the crawling feeling amping up until he thinks maybe he’ll rip his skin off just to stop it. He’s got to stay calm, he’s got to leave.

He hasn’t got his pack, he hasn’t got his wallet or his phone. There’s no chance he’s getting on a plane or even a boat without any of that.

Niall’s left his phone on the table; Louis snatches it up. He does the one thing he can do -- logs onto twitter and DMs the one person in the world who’d help him right now, no questions asked, for their phone number.

Liam answers quickly once he rings.

“Hey, it’s Louis.”

“Hey, Tommo! I don’t recognize this number. Have you lost your phone? That explains why you haven’t been answering my texts. Although, I reckon you told me you weren’t going to answer while you were out _finding yourself_... Have you gone and found yourself already?”

“I need -- I need you to come get me.”

\--

He doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t even think he blinks. He listens to the sound of Niall’s breathing on the other side of the door, close enough Louis thinks he’s sitting against the door.

Niall asks for forgiveness, Niall offers to help, to keep him safe. Niall tells him there are things Louis doesn’t understand, things Niall’s seen, things the wolf has done to his family.

Louis stays silent, covers his ears, texts Liam for updates, and waits.

It’ll take Liam hours and hours to get here, to make arrangements with work, get someone to watch the dogs, to drive to Manchester to catch a nonstop, to drive all the way out. Louis’ scared to try to leave on his own. He’s scared to see what they would do if they caught him. Burn him at the stake, or -- drive a silver bayonet through his heart.

Disappointment leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. That’s what Louis calls it, disappointment, but it feels greater than that, an emotion he’s never found a name for. So he’s just disappointed.

\--

“I can’t leave,” Louis says, digging in his heels.

Louis had waited until Niall had left for reinforcements, after his final half-hearted plea to get Louis to open the door. He’s guessing it’s Harry Niall’s going for, unless there’s a full lynch mob ready to _Beauty and the Beast_ their way into the room to kill the beast.

“Yes, you can,” Liam says gently, and pushes at Louis’ back again.

He can feel the grumbling vibrating out in his chest, a warning. “Liam, I _can’t_.”

“Okay.” Liam runs a hand through his hair as he thinks hard enough it looks like he’s actually going to start steaming with the effort. “I’ll -- okay, I’m gonna pick you up. Don’t freak out.”

He immediately freaks out, the second Liam’s arms loop around him and lift him off the floor. He twists and kicks in Liam’s arms, his hands reaching out to bat and claw at him, snarling the whole way. Liam dumps him, almost unceremoniously on the other side of the threshold and takes a few steps back, warily eyeing Louis’ hands.

Louis turns and vomits all over the floor.

He doesn’t want to think any of it’s real, not even after the silver-lined doorway makes him sick up all of the digesting bloody rare steak he’d had the last time he’d eaten all over the hallway of Niall’s building. He feels as though he’s gone through hell and back just being shoved through Niall’s threshold and nearly stumbles his way into the puddle of sick.

“Holy shit, mate, are you all right?” Liam asks, wrapping his arms around Louis’ waist to keep him upright.

“Let’s just get the fuck out of here,” Louis answers, and they do. Louis climbs into Liam’s rental car with a pair of Niall’s joggers and a jumper that smells too much like him, without shoes or dignity.

They’re hours from the airport in Dublin. They’re both hoping an expired license Liam dug up from storage and a handful of bills is enough to get them both home. Louis’ll have to cut the rest of his trip in half to pay Liam back.

Louis rests his head against the cool window of Liam’s rental car, hoping to alleviate the way his body shakes the further they drive. He tells himself it’s the post-vom tremors. He tries to believe that.

He can tell Liam buzzes with a hundred questions he’d promised not to ask -- he’d spit shaken on that, and they don’t take that shit lightly. But Louis can read him like a book, can smell the anxiety permeating the car as any gas would expand to the entire volume of its container. Louis can’t think of any reason why that’s one of the few things about primary science he’d remember but he does.

It’s better to focus on that sort of thing, instead of trying to noodle out exactly what he’d tell Liam about what happened to him here. _I was nearly murdered by a madman,_ he could start, _only the madman was a werewolf and he’s cursed me too. I wonder if I’ll get suspiciously good at sport the way they do in movies._

One absurd part is trying to tell Liam what they all say about him. But the bigger issue is how there’s that one irritating part of his brain -- the part that sounds like Liam, his conscience -- that tells him there might just be something to it.

He shakes off the echoes of Niall’s last pleas to him. _Louis, don't you realize the things you've been doing? How you've changed already?_

Louis starts to feel carsick after only a short while, the further he gets from the bog the worse it feels. They stop at a diner at the first sign of civilization, the neon R of the Diner sign blinking on and off like it’s a command -- _dine_.

“I’m not hungry,” Louis pouts as soon as he sits down and realizes they won’t feed him what he wants them to. He somehow manages to get by without anyone pitching a fit over his bare feet, so he supposes he’s not going to complain too much.

“Oh,” Liam says, looking down at his laminated menu and flicking at the corner where the two sides have started to peel apart. The way he says it is like it’s his fault Louis’ gone and fucked up his diet.

Liam’s eyes flick to the scars on Louis’ cheeks before they go to Louis’ eyes every time he looks over, and his lips press together tighter, like he has to physically prevent himself from saying whatever it is he wants to say. Probably that they should call the police. Louis doesn’t want the police, he just wants it to be over. He wants to get so far from that town that he forgets what it’s called.

Liam’s phone rings close to nonstop on the table between them. Louis’ seconds away from chucking it so hard across the room it’ll snap into a hundred pieces. It’s only out of respect for Liam that he doesn’t. “Who the fuck is that?”

Liam peeks. “It’s that bloke whose phone you called me from.”

Louis sours immediately. “Turn it off.”

\--

The second they’re back in the car, Louis curls until his knees are at his chest. He’d lied in the diner. He’s starving.

“Safety first,” Liam hums, so Louis unfolds himself for his seatbelt before curling back up.

His eyes flick up to the full moon, getting brighter in the sky it’s like it’s nearly bragging about it. There’s no trace of the sun now, and Louis feels absolutely fine. Other than completely gutted, like he’s had his heart torn clear from his chest. Other than that. Absolutely fine.

“What’re you going to do now?” Liam asks once they’re on the road again.

Louis pauses. It’s not necessarily a question about what’s happened, so much as it’s what’s _going_ to happen, so he allows it. “I’m going to Rome.”

“Still? I’m not so sure that’s the best idea.”

“I deserve it. And you’re coming with me. No more of this alone shit. I’m a social creature, Liam, I need witnesses to greatness.”

“I dunno that I can just pack up and go to Rome with you.”

“You’ve never taken a vacation a day in your life -- fucking _Christ_ \-- ” Louis curls forward, grabbing at his head which suddenly throbs so violently, he’s pretty certain it’ll combust.

“Are you all right?”

It feels like hours before he can find his voice long enough to rasp, “Pull over.”

“What?”

He turns for Liam, a warning growl bubbling up from his chest and heat in his eyes as he looks at Liam. “Pull the _fucking car over_.”

“Louis, your _eyes_ ,” Liam starts, but he looks quickly back at the road and pulls the car over, screeching to a stop.

Louis scrambles with his seat belt, he’s got to get _outside._ His shaking fingers are unable to find the button for release, so he rips the thing off him. It goes easy in his hands, as does the door, but he doesn’t breathe any easier once he’s gulping in the fresh air.

He goes for the side of the road blindly, his feet slipping as soon as they stomp onto the dead, wet leaves, and he goes tumbling down a hill, rolling until he slams into a tree at the base. The pain of his back cracking against the tree is nothing compared to the pain inside his head.

His eyes scrunch shut and he presses his hands to his temples, but nothing’s going to alleviate the pain. It shoots down his back like a bolt of lightning, and it sets his skin on fire. He’s hot, he’s boiling, but he can’t feel the sharp autumn air at all, there’s no relief.

His fingers twist and snap and grow as he pulls at his clothes. They tear like wet paper off him under his claws.

He can hear Liam shouting after him, the sound of leaves rustling as he’s trying to make his way safely down to him.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Liam shouts, the look of horror on his face just visible with Louis’ unfocused eyes.

Louis snarls at him to get the fuck away or he’ll _kill him_ as another burst of pain overcomes him. His eyes scrunch shut and his fingers dig into the dirt and moss and after a while, he doesn’t scent Liam anymore.

He can feel his chest expand and contract and curve, the cracking of his bones filling his ears. He twists inhumanly, watches his skin darken before hair thickens over it. He has a passing understanding of what’s happening to him, underneath the shock and the horror of how his body transforms. The pain never ceases.

He doesn’t have time to think if maybe Niall was right about him after all. He just wishes it was all over.

\--

Louis runs on the bog, stretching his legs like he’s never done before, like he’s been made to do. He covers ground like he’s flying, heavy, natural strides leading him towards the howl. He’d heard the call.

He howls back when he arrives, finds this stretch of land empty, though he’d been led here.

Louis pauses, tilts his head, and catches the wrong scent on the wind. He growls, deep in his chest. Niall shouldn’t be here. But the wolf has called them both here.

“Lou,” Niall says, low and questioning.

Fear pours out of him, practically clouding the air as thick as his breath in the cold air before him. But nothing overwhelms this silver in his gun, the silver bayonet in his hands. It hits Louis’ nostrils and burns like a poison. His mouth cracks open so his warning grows louder, slipping through his fangs. Niall shouldn’t be here.

Niall raises his shotgun and it shakes along the way until he shoulders it firmly. Louis holds his ground, doesn’t consider for a moment running for his life.

The shot doesn’t hit him. Louis traces the path as quick as it happens, the shots don’t connect with anything. The wolf barrels towards them still, and Niall cocks and shoots again, catching it this time in its broad chest.

The wolf stops in its tracks, twisting onto the ground and howling, bleeding but still breathing. It shakily rises to its feet, injured but not dissuaded. Louis makes a final glance toward Niall, who holds the bayonet with a firm grip.

Louis goes for the wolf instead, thundering across the distance between them and ramming it hard enough to send it back to the ground. He does what he has to do, to keep the village safe. To keep Niall safe.

The wolf doesn’t go down easy, its teeth gnashing to tear at him, claws digging deep into his sides. Louis knocks it down again and again until it stays down, stronger for his purpose. The silver in the wolf’s chest hisses as its body attempts to eject it.

Louis can feel the energy of the two of them together, how they’d be able to feed off each other, how they could grow in numbers to grow in strength. With a pack, not even the silver that lines the town could stop them.

That’s why the wolf has brought them both here. That’s why the wolf didn’t kill him under the last full moon.

Louis knows what he has to do.

His claws sink into the wolf’s muzzle, holding it down as he tears its throat out. Then he goes for its heart. He can already scent the wolf trying to patch itself back together. Louis won’t be enough.

Louis steps off of it, certain it won’t attack again, not for a while. He clears the wolf for Niall, bows his head in deference.

Niall takes the invitation, shivering with the cold and with what he must do. He kneels and digs the bayonet straight into the wolf’s heart, firmly, quickly, pressing until the wolf shudders its final breath.

Niall stumbles away, dropping the shotgun and doubling over as he empties his stomach into the mud. He coughs and sputters and wheezes and shakes, and Louis keeps his distance. Niall wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, smearing blood against his face in replacement of the sick. He looks good with blood on him, and for a moment, Louis thinks the wolf may have had a point.

Louis circles him, giving him and his weapon a wide berth. The blood between them perfumes the air, starts to tug at Louis’ stomach until he starts to salivate. He turns abruptly, sprints fast enough that Niall can’t follow him. Niall doesn’t try to, doesn’t call after him.

Louis howls, feels it vibrate through his whole body, so that in the distance Niall will know he’s watching, he’s there.

\--

He wakes alone, shivering, in the bog, his bits out there for everyone to see, completely indecent. His mum would be ashamed. Both of his state and of what he’s become.

There’s little to no use to deny it now. He did some… pretty serious shit last night. He can feel it in his bones, the way they ache, rest inside him like they’re unfamiliar.

Louis rolls to his feet, dusting off his hands on his thighs for what good that does -- absolutely none at all. He starts for the village, certain in his steps this time. He is met at the top of the hill.

Niall stands before him, surveying Louis critically. He’s poised like he’s ready to turn around and make a run for it at any moment. He’s got a blanket in his hands and blood on his hands, his neck, his jeans.

“You’re hurt.” Louis grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him close, snuffling from head to toe to find some sort of wound.

“No, I’m fine, Louis.” He twitches a little, but Louis just holds firmer. “I’m _fine_.”

Louis licks up the side of his neck. “This isn’t your blood.”

“No, it’s not.”

Louis pauses. “I remember.” Niall holds the blanket out, and Louis lets him wrap him up. It is a bit chilly on the bog. “I can’t believe you were right. I -- I did that. It was all real.”

“It’s a lot to believe,” Niall says reasonably.

Louis sighs. “I’m sorry I said all those things about you.”

Niall raises his eyebrows. “What things?”

“Ah,” Louis says with a grimace. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said. “Maybe I just thought them. In any case. I was angry. They were quite vicious and I’m still sorry for that.”

Niall shrugs. “Suppose I deserved a few of them. I shouldn’t have hid it from you, but -- I was scared for you. I didn’t want to lose you. Or. You to lose yourself.”

“I just -- I don’t feel any different, but if I sit and think about it, like, I know the things I wasn’t doing wasn’t right. But it didn’t feel wrong? I dunno if that makes any sense.”

“I think it does.” Niall looks over his shoulder, down the hill at the village that looks like it’s just starting to wake up. “D’you want to go home?”

Louis nods. They walk down the hill together.

“I think maybe what you were trying to tell me through the door yesterday, in your weird roundabout way, is your dad got killed.”

Niall’s breath catches for a moment, but then he smoothes his face over. “He, y’know, he always thought we could reason with them. He always thought they were people. Even when we’d find a body at the foot of the hill, he’d just say if we gave’m a chance, they would come back off the bog. They’d find a way to control it.”

“But they wouldn’t?”

“No.” He sounds sorry to say it, sorry for Louis, sorry for himself.

“So what do I do?” Louis asks, his mouth going dry as he tries to seriously consider the options. “Is it -- do you kill me? Is that the only way? So I don’t hurt anyone?”

Niall frowns. “You -- you want to fight it?”

“Of course I bloody do! I’m not -- I’m not a _monster_.”

“You’re not. You protected me.” Niall squints at him. “How’d you do that?”

He knew in his core Niall was to be protected, has known for days, maybe weeks, maybe from the first moment he saw Niall in that pub. It’s just understood. “I dunno.”

“Maybe, like. I think the people here, maybe they give up. They think _that’s it, I’m bitten now,_ and they just give over. They let the wolf control them. You chose to go after the wolf instead of me. You might not have killed anyone.”

Louis remembers the blood, he remembers the hunger. There was the impulse to attack, to sate himself with something sweeter than the wolf’s blood. “I think I might’ve -- if it wasn’t you, Niall, I really think I might have.”

Niall barks a short laugh, somewhat amused, maybe somewhat horrified. “Reckon it’s a good thing it was me, then.”

\--

Liam sits outside Niall’s pub, an untouched glass of whiskey next to him on the rusted bench. It’s a little early for a drink, but Louis doesn’t say anything about it. He settles in beside Liam, shifts to wrap the blanket a little more securely around himself. He eyes the pub suspiciously, noting the way it pulses like it wants to keep Louis out. Silver, Louis thinks, and them sigils carved into the wall.

Liam’s quiet for a long time, no doubt playing through his mind exactly how wild his last twenty-four hours has been, and honestly? Same.

“I didn’t get renter’s insurance,” Liam says flatly.

“Hm?”

“You ripped the seat belt out of the rental car,” he clarifies, more of a factual statement than it is an accusation.

Louis tsks. “Ah. Yeah. Sorry about that.”

“And the door.”

“Still sorry, Liam.”

He blinks, his first sign of life other than his lips moving. “I had to drive back here with no passenger door.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Not much of anything, really, I’m still processing.” He looks over to Louis, a little afraid. “Are you -- a werewolf, Louis?”

Louis exhales deeply enough his lips flutter and buzz. “Yes, I am.”

He looks back out at the bog, a bit dazed. “Oh. Okay.”

The door to the pub swings open, and it must be laced with silver too from the way Louis flinches at it. This fucking town.

“Hey,” Niall says, looking between the two of them before he approaches cautiously. He hands some clothes to Louis.

Louis dresses quickly. Liam looks away, Niall doesn’t. Louis winks at him.

“This is Niall, by the way.”

Liam lifts an obligatory hand in hello. “We met. Last night. After you turned into a werewolf. Louis. You did that. That was a thing you did. Last night, Louis. A werewolf.”

Louis nods solemnly. “I did do that.” He can scent Harry stomping down the lane next to him before he shows, an odd clicking accompanying his steps. Niall tenses, like maybe it’s one of his rabid villagers, so Louis says, “Harry’s coming.”

“How d’you -- ” Liam starts. Then Harry rounds the corner, comes to a stop in front of them.

“Great news, I have about a dozen ideas,” he says, holding up the thick chains in his hands. “I've got a good feeling about three of them.”

“Harry,” Niall says.

“Hm?”

“Not really the time, thanks.”

Harry looks between the three of them, reads the situation. “Ah. How about I take this stranger inside, give you both some privacy?”

Liam looks at Louis for permission before he reluctantly trudges into the pub after Harry. Louis winces at the door again, but the pressure of it relaxes when Niall settles into Liam’s spot quickly, pressing against Louis’ side like it’s just natural for them.

Louis pokes at the scar on Niall’s knee through the whole in his jeans. “A dozen ideas, huh.”

“Harry’s got lots of cages,” Niall says. “For the dogs, that is. Though you’re probably a bit stronger than that.”

“You haven't tried to lock a, um -- a werewolf up before?”

Niall looks over at him, unimpressed. “Well, Louis, I haven't. Mostly because they really just want to kill us.”

“In our defense, your mates are awful keen to kill us too,” Louis says, which. Gotcha.

“They won’t. Louis, I swear they won’t.”

“That’s right.” Louis grins, remembering what Niall’d said of him yesterday. “I’m Niall’s wolf.”

Niall snorts. “Yeah, you are.” He slides his hand over Louis’ on his knee, weaving their fingers together. He’s not wearing his silver ring.

Louis leans over and sticks his nose into Niall’s jumper, getting a couple of good whiffs of him, before he shifts to look out over the bog. That’s his, that bog, and it wants him. He can’t fathom leaving it, or this village, or Niall.

He’s Niall’s, too, and Niall wants him. He’s pretty sure about that, that Niall wants him to stay. And not just because he’d be a danger anywhere else. Because -- he’s Niall’s wolf.

“You'll have to do something about all that silver in your flat, by the way,” Louis says, just to check, hoping Niall decodes that to mean _I’m staying with you_.

Niall nods easily and says, “I will.”

\----

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you very much for reading! if you need me, i'm [here](https://wickershire.tumblr.com/post/152119385473/title-you-saw-me-standing-alone-rating-general).


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